Troop One of the Labrador eBook

Hours afterward Jamie awoke. He was shivering
with the cold. The fire had burned out, save
the backlog which still glowed. It was night.
The storm had passed and the wind dropped to fitful
blasts. The stars were shining brightly, and
the sky was clear save for feathery, fast moving cloud
patches.

Jamie rebuilt the fire, and lay down to await morning.
He was so hungry that he could scarce lie still, but
again his eyes drooped and again he slept.

It was near daybreak when Jamie was startled by some
unusual noise, and sat up with a jerk. He listened
intently, and satisfied that someone was approaching
sprang up and looked cautiously out, seized with panic
and ready for flight. In the dim starlight he
could plainly see two men coming toward him over the
marsh.

CHAPTER XIX

SEARCHING THE WHITE WILDERNESS

Nearly three hours passed before Doctor Joe and David
returned to camp, disheartened and thoroughly alarmed,
to report that they had found no trace of Jamie.
In the thick-falling snow and darkness they had been
forced to relinquish the search until daylight should
come to their assistance.

Andy and the boys were dazed. It could hardly
be comprehended or credited that Jamie was, indeed,
lost. They ate their belated supper in silence,
half expecting that he would, after all, come walking
in upon them. Doctor Joe was grave and preoccupied.
Several times, now he, now David, went out into the
night to stand and listen in the storm, but all they
heard was the wail of wind in the tree tops.

At last, with heavy hearts, they went to bed, upon
Doctor Joe’s advice. Andy asked that he
might pass the night in the tent with Doctor Joe and
David, and so it was arranged. Neither Andy nor
David, more worried than they had ever been in all
their lives before, felt in the least like sleep.
Doctor Joe did not lie down with them. For a
long while the two lads lay awake and watched him crouching
before the stove smoking his pipe, his face grave
and thoughtful. He had spoken no word of encouragement,
and the lads knew that he was troubled beyond expression.

The wind was rising. In sudden gusts of anger
it dashed the snow against the tent in swirling blasts,
and moaned dismally through the tree tops. The
crackling fire in the stove, usually so cheerful, only
served now to increase their sorrow. It offered
warmth and comfort and protection from the night and
cold and drifting snow, which Jamie, if he had not
perished, was denied. They could only think of
him as wandering and suffering in the cold and darkness,
hungry and miserable, and they condemned themselves.

When sleep finally carried the lads into unconsciousness,
Doctor Joe’s tall figure was still crouching
before the stove, and when they awoke he was already
up and had kindled a fresh fire in the stove, though
it was not yet day, and the tent was lighted by the
flickering flame of a candle.